Sodium is responsible for regulating your blood pressure and water balance in the human body. Since these two often get out of hand with kidney disease, a low-salt diet is often recommended. In this article, you will find practical tips on how you can easily manage this.
Season with herbs instead of salt
If you don't do it already, it is recommended to season with fresh or dried herbs instead of salt. Thyme, rosemary, marjoram, basil and co. make the food taste at least as good as salt. Even if some spices may contain a relatively large amount of potassium, this should not cause any problems with the small amounts of seasoning.
Choose salt-free spice mixtures
There are tasty salt-free spice mixtures on the market, which you can easily choose from the packaging. Be particularly careful with seasoning blends - they are often very salty.
Enhance the flavor in other ways
Garlic and onions, vinegar or even lemon juice can contribute to creating delicious dishes!
Use flavorful, cold-pressed oils
Examples include walnut oil, olive oil, sesame oil, pumpkin seed oil, or even herb oil.
Look carefully at mineral water
There is higher sodium and lower sodium mineral water. Favorable would be less than 50 mg sodium per litre liquid.
Marinate fish & meat
Marinating foods can improve the taste despite low amounts of salt and often tastes incredibly delicious!
Fresh, unprocessed foods
They often contain very little salt compared to convenience foods that have gone through a variety of production and preservation steps.
Beware of ready-made sauces and broths
They are actually high in salt across the board. Beware also of broths that are reduced in cooking salt: they often contain yeast as a seasoning and this in turn is high in phosphate, which many people with kidney disease should also be aware of.
Beware of these foods
Cured foods, industrial snacks, chips, olives, soy sauce, mustard, and ready-made dressings like ketchup. It's best, if you just get into the habit of always directly checking the salt content on packaged foods.
Ban salt shakers from the table
You heard it - it's best not to put them on the table at all, then you won't even tend to add extra salt. By the way, did you know that your taste buds adapt to a lower salt diet after only 2-3 weeks?
You should also be careful with dietary salts.
They are often offered as a substitute for table salt, but are usually based on potassium. Since you may also have to watch your potassium level, you should rather stay away from them.
The bottom line for a salt-reduced diet is that you should eat natural foods as much as possible and get used to alternatives to salt when seasoning. This way, you'll have optimal control over your salt intake! In Mizu, you can save your favorite foods and recipes that best suit your diet plan.
